Italy Covid Travel Risk Raised to Level 4

Thanks for posting. Travelers need to check travel news and official sources regularly as there are EU consultations ongoing now about coordinated travel requirements among member states.

You're welcome. Yes, certainly NOT the news that anyone wants to hear but we need to be as informed as possible.

Trying not to get too depressed or anxious -- but it's not easy. I fondly remember the days when I loved the planning phase of an upcoming trip but that is no longer the case. Planning used to mean researching day trips, tours, restaurants, etc. and now it is trying to keep up with risk assessments and back-up plans for possible self-quarantines in a foreign land. This is pretty far from "la dolce vita"!

Thank you joeandrose. Just yesterday my husband and I decided to push back our first ever trip to Italy. We were scheduled for the Best of Venice, Florence, and Rome tour for April 2022. Every day leading up to our deadline to cancel and still get a 100% refund was becoming agony. We finally decided to reschedule for a trip in the fall and are hopeful that Covid won’t interfere with our plans at that time. Reading your post although is disturbing news only confirms our decision to postpone. Hopefully this travel alert will be short lived, we can only pray.

Totally agree with you joeandrose! We planned our whole trip for May 2021 and had to cancel. Trying to be the optimist, we re-planned it again for May 2022. Planning is a big part of the enjoyment and fun. Now we are just hoping we can go this time.

Linda, totally understand your decision to cancel and hope for the best in the fall. What a shame that this is your first trip to Italy and that this is happening. Well, when you do get there you will really have to celebrate!

Charlie, our "do-over" trip is also in May 2022 making up for our cancelled one in May 2020. I really don't want to cancel and hope that warmer weather will bring an improvement and Omicron will perhaps be burned out by then -- fingers crossed but all this uncertainty is beyond stressful. I'm a bit of a control freak -- so needless to say this is not my cup of tea (or in this case cappuccino!) --Rose

My rescheduled trip is also in May, 2022. My understanding is the new variant isn’t as bad as Delta, is that the case? I’m hopefully things may settle down by spring, but sheesh, anything is possible.

I arrived in Italy today, so this level 4 thing is probably my fault :). Iceland went level 4 right before I got there, as well as Costa Rica.

I am fully vaccinated and boostered. So far, it seems people are wearing masks (Including outdoors) and taking the requirements very seriously. You now have to have a negative COVID test (rapid antigen) within 24 hours of ARRIVAL into Italy.

We jumped through the hoops and now we're here. At some point we are going to have to figure out to live with this virus. it doesn't seem to be going away.

Was there any rationale given? From reading on here, it seems like Italians are still taking this very seriously. Rates are up, but hospitalizations aren’t comparatively

Maybe the CDC should put the USA on Level 4

Maybe the CDC should put the USA on Level 4

The US has been at a level 4 for as long as I can remember. Check the CDC map below.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/map-and-travel-notices.html

Was there any rationale given?

You can see the criteria used for each level here:

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/how-level-is-determined.html